The sad story of Anna, Nils and the Andrée Expedition
This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts about Anna Charlier (1871-1949), a Swedish woman who is most (although still not very) famous for being the fiancee of Nils Strindberg, a Swedish photographer who was part of an ill-fated hot-air balloon expedition to try to reach the North Pole in 1897.
Back in 2016, I found three of her music scores when I was doing some re-cataloguing of stock in the library where I work. She had written both her maiden and married names in them, and, because I’m inquisitive (or nosy) I Googled her and found out about her, Nils and the expedition. I became a bit obsessed, including attempting to learn Swedish (which I still haven’t learned to my satisfaction), but I didn’t really know what to do with all the information apart from a few blog posts and contributions to work-related events. If you Google Anna, you’ll probably find some of my previous efforts to write about her. I have recently rekindled my research in this area. I don’t really know why! Perhaps because of the cold weather.
Anna and Nils
Anna and Nils met in 1896 while Anna was working as a governess in Stockholm. As an accomplished musician, some of her time was spent teaching piano to 12 girls in various different houses across the city. Nils was a tutor for one of the families she worked for.
Nils is reported to have been clever, friendly, and polite. He was becoming one of Sweden’s most famous men due to his involvement in Andrée’s planned balloon expedition to the North Pole. He was also the cousin of August Strindberg, one of Sweden’s most famous writers at the time.
They became engaged on 26th October 1896.
The Andrée Expedition
The tragically ill-fated Andrée Expedition was instigated by Salomon August Andrée, a Swedish engineer. He aimed to reach the North Pole by hot air balloon, travelling from Svarlbard to Canada or Russia, passing the North Pole on the way. As may be noted this plan was somewhat risky to say the least, but Andrée was supported by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and funded by King Oscar II of Sweden and Alfred Nobel, among others.
There was a team of four men involved in the planning of the expedition: the reserve Vilhelm Swedenborg, Nils Strindberg, (23) Knut Frænkel, (27) and S. A. Andrée (as he was often known). Nils was working as a teaching assistant at the Technical University. He was also a keen and talented photographer, so Andrée employed him on the expedition as second in command and the official photographer.
The balloon set off from Svarlbard (650 miles from the Pole) on 11th July 1897, when Nils was 23 years old.
Anna moved in with her future father in law, then moved to a new post in Vaddo. On Nils’ birthday, Andrée gave him letters that Anna and his family had written before the expedition left. He recorded in his diary:
“It was a real pleasure to see how glad he was”.
The men never returned.
Afterwards
Following Nils’ disappearance, Anna lived as a piano teacher, but seems to have had Parkinson’s or similar [see handwriting]. She kept in touch with Nils’ relatives in Stockholm. 13 years later, Anna married an English teacher, Gilbert Hawtrey, and moved to America. She later moved with her husband to England, where she lived until her death in 1949.
33 years later
In 1930, the men’s bodies were discovered on Kvitøya (White Island), along with diaries and letters detailing some of what happened to them. However, the cause of their deaths remained a mystery until fairly recently. Among the remains found of the expedition are a locket containing a lock of Anna’s hair that Nils wore round his neck, as well as letters (in shorthand) that he wrote to Anna.
“These tend to reflect his insistence on believing that he would return to her, which is perhaps what sustained him” [New Yorker].
There was national mourning in Sweden when the remains of the Andrée, Strindberg and Fraenkel were returned to their homeland. Anna had returned to England by this time, but she left a wreath next to the men’s grave, with the note, “To Nils, from Anna”.
Nils’ brother Tore sent Anna the letters Nils had written to her.
According to the diaries kept by the men, the balloon’s steering lines came unscrewed, ice weighed down the balloon and they were forced to make an emergency landing after travelling for only three days. Between 4th August and September 9th 1897, when Andrée stopped making diary entries, the ice had carried them approximately 80 miles south-southeast, when they had been trying to travel the same distance southwest.
Anna’s heart
Anna died aged 78, and is buried in Devon, England. At her request, her heart was cut from her body and cremated separately. The ashes were put in a silver box (sent to Tore Strindberg by Hawtrey) and Nils’ brothers buried it with his remains in the Northern Cemetery in Stockholm on 4th September 1949, his birthday.
The story of Anna and Nils and the expedition has been portrayed in various media over the years. I will try and write about this in a future post, but for now here’s ‘Silver Box’, a song by Philip Henry and Hannah Martin:
Bibliography
Andrées Arctic Balloon Expedition. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrees_Arctic_balloon_expedition (Accessed: 30th January 2025).
Anna Charlier. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Charlier (Accessed: 30th January 2025).
Bond, J. (2013) Perfect North. Sydney: Hachette Australia.
Choong, C. (2017) The music of the spheres: Books at the centre of a cultural universe. Available at: https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk/item/88311/-the-music-of-the-spheres-books-at-the-centre-of-a-cultural-universe (Accessed: 30th January 2025).
Choong, C. (2019) The mystery of Anna Charlier's piano music. Available at: https://blogs.canterbury.ac.uk/library/the-mystery-of-anna-charliers-piano-music/ (Accessed: 30th January 2025).
Dickey, C. (2014) 'Above the ice: Grief and adventure on the path to the North Pole', The Paris Review. Available at: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/10/23/above-the-ice/ (Accessed: 20th January 2025)
Salomon August Andrée. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_August_Andree (Accessed: 30th January 2025)
The Andrée Expedition. Available at: https://svalbardmuseum.no/en/the-andre-expedition (Accessed: 30th January 2025).
Uusma, B. (2014) The expedition: A love story : Solving the mystery of a polar tragedy. Head of Zeus.
Wilkinson, A. (2010) 'The ice balloon: A doomed journey in the Arctic', The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/04/19/the-ice-balloon (Accessed: 30th January 2025)